Monthly Archives: November 2010

What is the true cost of attending SfN?

This post marks a transition from the thematically focused and daily “official” SfN reporting to a thematically broader and more relaxed posting schedule. As a matter of fact, it has been more than a few days since the last one. … Continue reading

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How physically taxing is SfN? Quite a bit!

Oh the daze of the post-SfN haze. If you did what I did, and feel like I feel, you can probably relate to this. The intensity of this particular pilgrimage is legendary. Having just come back from it, I can … Continue reading

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SfN 2010: It’s a wrap

And that’s it for this year. Stay tuned for an upcoming review post where I will be commenting on some macro-trends and how they manifested themselves at the meeting. Hope to see you all next year.

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Subjective preference and its effect on the reliability of cortical activity during movie viewing @LLL67

Is being presented now (1-5 pm). Join the live blogging/poster presenting experiment. Come to the poster and comment below.

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SfN 2010: Wednesday, Day 5. Judgment day

First a brief preview of how my last day will unfold, if everything goes to plan. I will spend most of the morning at the minisymposium on Synesthesia. Synesthesia has already been a hot topic at this meeting, but this … Continue reading

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SfN 2010: Tuesday, Day 4. What is going on?

You probably won’t agree with me on this one, but I feel strongly about it: The meeting feels much emptier and somewhat “lighter” this year. I know that the reported attendance of close to 32,000 is in line with expectations (good for … Continue reading

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SfN 2010: Monday, Day 3. Manic Monday – Mental illness and the Neuroscience of moon landings

[poll id=”4″] Summary: Manic Monday is already upon us. A lot of painful choices have to be made, particularly in regards to the social calendar in the late PM. Here is what I said before the day went by: >I … Continue reading

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SfN 2010: Sunday, Day 2. Another day in (Neuroscience) paradise.

[poll id=”6″] Summary: Another beautiful day in paradise, another busy day at SfN. I spent most of my morning at the posters of two Theme D sessions: Visual Cognition, Attention & Decision Making I and Vision: Spatial Attention. Most notable: The … Continue reading

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SfN 2010: Saturday, Day 1. Starting with a bang.

Sorry for the delay in posting, but the reasons will soon become apparent. Also, note that this post was written somewhat in haste. I will update it later. Generally speaking, these “live” or near-live dispatches will have to be just … Continue reading

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The fall and rise of neural variability reveals the stimulus driven engagement and disengagement of neural networks

Is being presented now (1-5 pm). By yours truly. This is a live blogging/poster presenting experiment. The first of this kind, to my knowledge. Comment below.

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Showtime!

This is it. The meeting officially starts tomorrow. How will my day look like? Busy. Due to the fact that my flight was unilaterally pushed back (thanks, Continental), I will be missing the “Dialogues on Society and Science” (sigh). Instead, … Continue reading

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SfN by the numbers

The 40th annual Society for Neuroscience meeting is about to begin. This fact merits some reflection. 40 large meetings – held consecutively year after year – suggest a wildly successful, long and unbroken chain of vigorous scientific exchange. As such, it is … Continue reading

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Clear skies ahead

Good news: Up to this point, San Diego county experienced an unusually calm fire season this year. Many people don’t seem to remember this, but last time the SfN meeting was held in San Diego – in 2007 – the … Continue reading

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Crunch time

At this point, the conference is as far away in time, as the meeting itself is long. This begs the question: [poll id=”2″]

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SfN 2010: The 100-hour dash

Most races are defined by the distance that the runner is required to go. The varying parameter is time: How fast can you do it? Not so with the SfN meeting. The duration of the meeting is fixed at precisely … Continue reading

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On dialogues between Neuroscience and Society

What do Frank Gehry, Jeff Hawkins and the Dalai Lama have in common? They were all previous speakers for the “Dialogues between Neuroscience and Society” SFN lecture series. The series was introduced in 2005, and has featured one such lecture … Continue reading

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Human tool use: Matlab

Did I mention that I love Matlab? The majority of labs in our field employ Matlab for data analysis. This is not necessarily the case for other fields like business (which seems to favor Excel), the social sciences (which seem … Continue reading

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How I learned to stop being overwhelmed and love the meeting – or: How (not) to do SfN, part II

We already discussed the basics of the art of SfN conferencing in a previous post, but let’s add meat to the bones. Our story starts in a long forgotten era, a time before Facebook, Youtube and – ironically (?) – … Continue reading

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Food for thought

I am starting to get really psyched about the upcoming meeting of the minds. The 40th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience should be an epic event, in every sense of that term. However, it is important to note that we … Continue reading

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The arrival of truly mobile computing

There is a well established correlation between physical fitness and long term health outcomes. In particular, lack of activity seems to shorten lifespan while daily moderate activity seems to extend it dramatically. In other words, I don’t care how much … Continue reading

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